THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  ...except the body was...Oriental! Sonofabitch!

  He twisted his head seeing three Japanese soldiers wiggling out of their shirts and dropping their pants at the other end! The diver rose to the surface and called to his friends. The water's roar masked his hail but he turned slowly around with a smile on his face and--

  Ingram ducked.

  He pushed off and went deep, frantically thinking. Damn! Where was everyone? How many Japs were at the other end? Had anyone seen him? He remembered a tuft of tall weeds near the deep end. Aiming for the spot, he rolled to his back and barely broke the surface silently treading with only nose and lips above the surface. Looking behind, he saw the weed tuft and pulled for it, finding the water about three feet deep. It afforded him adequate cover and he squatted in the muddy ooze watching the soldiers lather with soap while the diver leisurely breast stroked toward his buddies.

  The diver shouted something as another threw a bar of soap with great strength. Jumping in the air reaching, the man reached, but the soap bar bounced off his hand and flew toward the middle of the pool where waterfall wavelets pushed it on a course directly for the weeds where Ingram was hiding. The foursome laughed and jeered for a minute or so, then the soldier remembered his soap. He looked around the pool just as the errant soap had the temerity to bob through the weeds and nudge against Ingram's right cheek.

  He was afraid even to acknowledge it was there lest his eyeball's movements be detected. As if with it's own spirit, the bar gently tapped his cheek again. He looked down seeing the label imprinted deeply in the soap: IVORY. Shit. Betrayed by something made in the USA. Slowly, deftly, Ingram reached up and pulled the damn thing under.

  The soldier stood at hip level, looking for his soap. After a shout, another bar was tossed, and he caught it this time.

  It took the foursome twenty minutes to finish bathing. Then they toweled off, dressed, and vanished into the undergrowth.

  Ingram slowly released his breath and waited a full five minutes before he even turned his head. Where the hell is everybody?

  Finally, he ventured to shore, finding an inlet he hadn't seen earlier. It was dark, and he tread into it to discover thick vines and grass formed a thick green wall at the far end. His knees grazed the bottom, so he stood in slimy bottom ooze that squeezed between his toes, making him shiver and think of leeches and water snakes and crocodiles.

  Stepping on a smooth rock, he rose from the water and gripped the limb of a large, dead tree stump. "What the hell's going on?" he muttered. Grabbing another branch, he pulled himself onto the next rock and jumped on a low, soggy embankment. Looking into darkness, he drew a sharp breath. Two feet from his navel was the muzzle of a Thompson .45 caliber submachine gun. Behind the Thompson was an oriental wearing a planter's hat, a gold tooth, and a large grin. "Welcome to Marinduque Meester Ingram," the man said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  9 May, 1942

  U.S.S. Wolffish (SS 204)

  Sibutu Passage

  The seventeen-mile-wide passage was a major choke-point between the Celebes and Sulu seas. The Philippines lay to the east with its Sulu Archipelago jutting two hundred miles southwest from Mindanao. The Passages' western side was bounded by the Sibutu Island Group, also part of the Philippines, which lay just off Mangrove Point, Borneo's eastern extremity.

  Shortly after midday, a thirty-knot southerly blasted through the passage, building tall, well-formed rollers to march north into the Sulu Sea. These white capped wind-waves caromed off the submarine's port quarter, giving her poor rudder control and causing a sickening, almost slewing motion. She chased her target at nineteen knots and could have gone a little faster, but the Wolffish’s engineers were nursing the number three main engine again. The nine-cylinder diesel's temperature was up, and it could only run at ninety percent. That, plus a barnacle-encrusted bottom, levied a four knot speed penalty on this fleet submarine's hull--in the pre-war days the new U.S. Navy submarines were called fleet submarines because of their capability to scout ahead of the main battle fleet.

  The war had begun over six months ago, and Wolffish was an Asiatic-based submarine that survived the Japanese attack on the Cavite Naval Base on December 8, 1941. Since then, she had been pushed to her limits without the luxury of much needed maintenance, including a haulout and bottom cleaning.

  Kapitänleutnant Helmut Döttmer, now comfortable in a new set of United States Navy dungarees, was at his general quarters station. It was in the passageway just forward of the galley, which was part of crew's mess compartment. Döttmer considered himself fortunate to be stationed here for GQ. The other evacuees were assigned to the crew's berthing compartment, the next compartment aft, where they climbed in bunks to sweat out whatever was going on. Indeed Döttmer had been lucky. Chief Radioman Hall had given into his plea and tentatively assigned him to radio duties, which included backup watchstander in the one in three watch section. He was also backup radioman during GQ, which was why he now stood in this passage looking through the hatchway into the Wolffish's control room. Actually, GQ hadn't yet sounded, but everyone, knowing a pursuit was on, had drifted to their stations, anticipating the gong.

  The radio shack, an area of great interest to Döttmer, was situated against the portside of the control room's aft bulkhead. The watertight compartment immediately aft was the galley and crew's mess. Döttmer sat in the hatchway like a patiently circling vulture, listening and watching and waiting to have just sixty to ninety seconds alone in the cramped radio shack.

  Primary access to the outside was from a ladder in the control room up through a hatch to the conning tower and up another hatch onto the bridge. When submerged, the conning tower was crammed with the attack team where Ronnie commanded from one of the Wolffish's two periscopes.

  But today, Ronnie was on the bridge with Lieutenant Morton W. Sampson, the Wolffish’s Operations officer. They stood with feet planted on a wooden grate scanning to starboard, trying their best to pick out their target from Bonggaw Island's landmass, one of the westernmost islands in the Sulu Archipelago. Well above Ronnie and Lieutenant Sampson were two lookouts strapped into the periscope shears, one responsible for a one hundred eighty degree sweep to starboard, the other to port. Perched high above everybody on its own mast, was a gadget called a radar antennae that twirled a lonely sentinel. It had been hurriedly installed before they last got underway from Fremantle. No one trusted the damn thing, since it gave false echoes and constantly broke down. Even now, a technician sat with legs splayed, muttering to himself, in the aft part of the conning tower with parts and diagrams scattered all around. Everyone, including officers, called the portly, rather professorial looking man squatter since, except for meals and occasional sleep, he'd been there the whole voyage.

  Ronnie waved at Bonggaw Island. "Mort, he's in there, damnit. Wipe 'em off and try again."

  Sampson took a rag from his pocket, wiped his binocular lenses, braced himself on the bulwark, and carefully examined the verdant green mass of Bonggaw Island. It was warm, almost ninety degrees with as much humidity. But the thirty-knot breeze on their port quarter whipped spray off the tops of the waves, bringing occasional blasts of white water to drench the officer's short sleeve khaki shirts, shorts, shoes and binoculars. Higher in the periscope shears, the two lookouts were free of the spray and remained dry.

  "See anything?" said Ronnie.

  "Nope," Sampson replied. "She's over the horizon. Must have come further right."

  Ronnie cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted up to the starboard lookout, "Babcock, you still have him?"

  Babcock lowered his binoculars and called back, "Barely, Captain. Hull down. Just the tops, now."

  "Hmmmf." Ronnie stooped over the conning tower hatch and yelled down, "Whoddya think, Gordie?"

  Inside the conning tower, Lieutenant Gordon E. Chance, the Wolffish's executive officer had been tracking the target through the attack periscope. He stepped forward and, although he could see Ronnie about five feet above h
im, had to shout over the wind and occasional sheets of water spewing down the hatch. "She's definitely come right, Captain. We have her on three-three-five now, still at fourteen knots. Range has opened to eleven thousand five hundred."

  "Hugging the coast." A statement.

  "I concur, Captain."

  "Anything further on the ID?" asked Ronnie.

  Chance was about to say no when, Michaels, a second class quartermaster, scrambled up the hatch from the control room. Breathlessly, he plopped a copy of ONI-208J, a thick top secret merchant ship recognition manual, in Chance's hands. Partially bald, shirtless and sweating, the thin Michaels pointed with a bony finger. Chance nodded to Michaels and shouted up, "Yucatan Maru, class, Captain. One of only one. Eight thousand two hundred tons, three hundred seventy-five feet, fifteen knots."

  "What's she draw?"

  "Uhhhh." Chance's finger jinked down a dimension table, "Twenty-one feet. The pub thinks she's a refrigeration ship, but they're not sure."

  Ronnie rubbed his chin. "Okay. No duds this time. So, let's not leave anything to chance, no pun intended Gordo. I'll want tubes two, three, four, and five forward, and seven and eight aft. Set depth fifteen feet all torpedoes, and tell 'em now, so they have plenty of time to make sure everything works."

  "Aye, aye, Captain." Chance drew a deep breath, then said, "Exploders?"

  Ronnie said, "We'll give the magnetics another try. But make sure. Pull one torpedo forward and another aft, and check both their exploders and depth engines with a fine tooth comb."

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  "Eight-thousand-ton reefer, huh? Don't you think we should see a destroyer or two? Why don't we see destroyers, or at least airplanes?"

  "Dunno, Captain."

  "What's the latest on number three?"

  "Foggy thinks the exhaust manifold is cracked. He wants to shut it down and take a look." Foggy was the Wolffish's engineering officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Raleigh T. Sutcliff.

  "Jesus."

  "What'll I tell him?"

  "Negatory. We get the Maru first." Ronnie looked up for a moment, then said, "Okay, come right to three-five-zero and give me a course to intercept by sunset."

  "Aye, aye, Captain." Chance ordered the helmsmen who stood in the forward part of the conning tower, "Collins, right fifteen degrees rudder. Steady on three-five-zero."

  On the bridge, Ronnie stood and looked aft to check the Wolffish's wake. Soon, a white knuckle boiled up, a section of extra-frothy turbulence caused by rudder drag. As she turned to her new course, long, marching rollers lifted the submarine's stern, and she took an even more pronounced slewing movement. With no letup in the spray, Ronnie was drenched again, and it took a while to blink away the water. The next time he focused on the gyro repeater, the Wolffish had settled on her new course: three-five-zero.

  He stepped next to Sampson and pounded a fist on the bulwark. "Damn, Mort. I wanted that carrier. Now, alls we got is a lousy reefer." Something was wrong with the message they had received form COMSUBPAC. Keeping a sharp eye in the Sibutu Passage for the past eighteen hours had produced no tempting targets, no war-ravaged fleet, no fat carriers limping toward Japan's home islands from a battle in the Coral Sea.”

  Studying the horizon, Sampson said, "So we sink a reefer, and the Nips don't get their ice cream."

  "Wonderful." Ronnie raised his binoculars and focused on Bonggaw's lush shoreline. He braced his elbows to counteract the submarine's rolling so he could pick out the tops of the Yucatan Maru. "Damn."

  "Or maybe fresh tomatoes."

  "Wonderful."

  "Oranges?"

  "Shut up, Mort."

  * * * * *

  Dominic Federico Lorca, radioman second class, played the fiddle. Döttmer had heard him in the forward torpedo room one night playing something by Bach. He'd squeezed by sweaty bodies, ducked under a stowed torpedo, and slid next to the radioman. "Fugue? G-sharp minor?" he asked.

  Lorca's eyes were closed and he barely nodded as he dipped his shoulders and twisted his torso to his music. With a twinge of jealousy Döttmer wondered how could a common thug like this play so well? It was obvious the violinist knew how to take care of himself. He was broad, barrel-chested, having well-muscled biceps. With a nebulous Brooklyn heritage, Lorca had thick, black, curly hair that grew over a heavily pockmarked face and hideously displaced nose. Both of Lorca's arms were tattooed. The left said, "Arrivederci, Tojo" with a black-gloved fist hitting a Japanese caricature over the head; the right bicep sported a bleeding heart that said "Mother".

  And yet, for all Döttmer knew. Lorca could have been one of those young thugs that smashed his hand in that tenement house door. And the jerk was able to play the violin while Döttmer was forced into the trumpet.

  And now, Lorca stood next to Döttmer in the control room, keeping an eye on the radioroom, in case he was needed. For Lorca was the top radio man in the boat. With amazing accuracy, he could send and receive faster than anyone else. It was entirely second nature and to the uninitiated, it looked as though Lorca was goldbricking. He would lay his bleeping earphones--he called them "cans"--one on top of each of his broad shoulders, turn up the volume, and type messages while talking to someone or reading a magazine. It gave one an eerie feeling, as if a squealing phantom sat atop Lorca's shoulders to which he barely paid any attention.

  The radio room door burst open. A loud, slashing, belch announced Chief Hall. The slewing submarine made him walk drunkenly, bouncing off bulkheads as he made his way toward the hatch. "Take care of things for a minute, Dominic. I need something to eat."

  "Got it, chief." Lorca disappeared into the radio shack.

  Hall stepped over the hatch coaming, eased past Döttmer with a nod, and walked into the galley. Döttmer watched the chief grab a sandwich from a pile left out by the cooks and pour coffee that had been brewing since morning.

  Hall took three enormous bites and gulped his coffee. With a grin, Hall waved his mug and growled through stuffed cheeks, "Java tastes like shit. Ulcers for sure one of these days." He grabbed another sandwich, walked to a table, and sat facing aft.

  Döttmer saw that Lorca had left the radioroom door open a few inches and he dared not miss a chance for his first real look. He stepped through the hatch and peered inside the door. Lorca was leaning back in a chair with his "cans" carelessly draped around his neck. Hissing noises occasionally rose from the cans and faded like steam from a Union Pacific engine. He looked up with bored interest then returned to a well-thumbed copy of the Saturday Evening Post.

  Döttmer stepped boldly all the way in, studying everything, freezing each object in his memory as if he'd be thrown out when Lorca came to his senses. A giant transmitter was mounted five feet off the deck against the forward bulkhead; six receivers were stacked in twos on the port bulkhead; papers spilled from an open safe to Lorca's left. Behind him were lockers and a bookshelf jammed with technical manuals and code books. At Lorca's knees was a small desk with an Underwood typewriter, a telegraph key, message pads, blank paper, and carbons. A small bulkhead-mounted fan with rubber blades did little more than make flimsies on the message board flutter each time it swept back and forth.

  A yellow light indicated the transmitter was on, and a red-and-white striped guard latch was mounted over a switch labeled "transmit." To the right was a tuning knob with several scales, but to Döttmer it looked like he would be able to transmit in the five to ten megacycle range.

  Perfect. How about the--

  The can's hissing turned to a squeal, then an urgent beeping. Lorca looked up and shouted toward the door, "Priority for Negat-Peter-Peter-Dog from COMSUBPAC. You want me to take it, Chief?" NPPD was the Wolffish's call sign. It was a rather famous one among submariners because the last three phonetics, "--Peter, Peter, Dog," were extrapolated to indicate an overly amorous canine with two peckers.

  No answer from aft. Lorca looked up at Döttmer.

  "Okay," Döttmer said, and stepped into the passageway. Grabbing on to
overhead pipes, he made his way through the hatch. Seeing Chief Hall hunched over what had to be a third sandwich, he said, "Chief, COMSUBPAC has a priority message coming in. You want Lorca to handle it?"

  Hall half-turned, his cheeks bulged as he waved. "Uummmph."

  Döttmer returned to the radioroom to find Lorca already taking the message while glancing casually at his magazine. "Okay?" said Lorca.

  "Okay."

  Lorca tapped his Underwood and said, "How long you been playing the horn?"

  "Ten years."

  "Who with?"

  "Ziggy Ellman. Backup. They use to call me when someone got sick."

  It was a long message. With a practiced hand, Lorca yanked the first sheet from the Underwood's roller and inserted another in one smooth motion, saying, "Me, too. I tried out for the New York Phil. Nuthin'. Six months go by. Then one night a guy got sick and they let me play."

  "What was it?"

  "Mahler's 'Fifth.'"

  Goosebumps ran up Döttmer's arms. Mahler's Fifth. With its emotional trumpet solo, it was his favorite piece. Trying to put it out of his mind, he bent to study the transmitter more closely. It was still in standby. Submarines were on strict radio silence and didn't usually acknowledge messages, especially in a war zone. But it looked like the transmitter would be easy to activate. And once he raised Berlin, he could get Canaris’ message off in thirty to forty-five seconds. That was all he needed.

  "Fünf und vierzig sekunden," Döttmer muttered.

  "Huh?" said Lorca, tapping the Underwood.

  "Mahler's Fifth. It's my favorite." Döttmer shoved his left hand in the back of his belt, then ran his right over his neck finding it was sticky with sweat. And it wasn't because of humidity in the Sibutu Passage.

  * * * * *

  Number three main engine took a turn for the worse and began to issue rumblings and clankings uncharacteristic of a Fairbanks Morse, so at four in the afternoon Foggy Sutcliff pleaded his case. Ronnie gave reluctant permission to secure the engine, admonishing Sutcliff to bring the engine back on line as soon as possible. Sutcliff rumbled a vigorous "Aye, Aye, sir," and with two machinist's mates, rolled up his sleeves and tore into the recalcitrant behemoth.